PLA looks into China-US collaboration in biosecurity research

A new study has revealed the large number of biosafety research partnerships in recent years between China and the US

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China had significantly more biosafety research collaborations with the US between 2007 and 2023 than with any other country. Photo: AFP

Published: 5:00pm, 6 Dec 2024Updated: 11:08am, 10 Dec 2024

In the field of biosafety research, Chinese scientists have collaborated significantly more with scientists from the United States than from any other country, according to a survey by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

In these collaborative studies, “the keywords with the highest emergence intensity are ‘bioterror’, followed by ‘bacillus anthracis’, ‘PCR’, ‘identification’ and ‘biological warfare agents’,” the project team wrote in a report published in the Journal of Air Force Medical University on November 27.

The entity with the highest amount of participation in collaborative research was the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), which administers the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Its main collaborators in the United States included Colorado State University, the US Agency for International Development, the University of Maryland, the University of California, and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, according to the report.

The PLA’s survey analysed nearly 18,000 scientific papers related to biosafety published between 2007 and 2023.

“The strongest connection is between China and the United States,” the report said, revealing that there were 431 collaborations between the two nations, far exceeding those with other countries.